I suppose being born and growing through to adulthood is something like a Big Bang experience.At first you don't remember anything,but as you get farther and farther from your point of origin,you see a few things flashing by you.But you have no idea that,at some point,it may be useful to think back to those things so that you might tell others about it.They are isolated events when they happen.There is no sense of what history is,or why it matters.As you grow,and more and more things flash by,they become easier to see,understand and eventually to describe.You are not in any one place for more than a moment,though when you are a child things seem to move very slowly.It seemed like we were in Redmondville forever,but,as time goes,it was just a moment.But for me,a year was a whole third of my life,so it seemed like a very long time in which nothing changed very much.And then,very suddenly everything changed in a moment.
Early in 1964 Bob Dylan released an album called The Times They Are A Changing(still my favorite Dylan song).I guess if I'd had such thoughts in mind at the time,I would have found the song very appropriate for the occasion.The world was seemingly in upheaval,but then again,when is the world ever not?
Things were changing in our family too.My father decided to move us to Moncton,about eighty miles down the road.He still worked just five miles from where we were living,but he would commute the eighty miles back and forth.In all the years since,he never strayed from that decision.
So one day we were in Redmondville,and the next day we were gone.I have no sense of planning for the move,at least not in any way that involved me.I don't even have a sense of making the trip by car on the day that we moved.That trip down Highway 11 became familiar to me over the years,but I'm certain I didn't see it that day at all.I must have fallen asleep.
The next day we were in Moncton,and it was a very different place.It was the first time in memory that I'd ever been in a city.That first day I remember arriving at a red and white house.There was a moving van too,and my father talking to it's driver.And a supermarket,with food laid out over an area vaster than anything I'd ever seen.And there was a big park.I'd never been to a park before.This one had swings and seesaws and a big thing that everyone called the witch's hat because of the way it was shaped.It went around and around a big post in the center of it,and it also went inward and outward.Sitting on it,and riding around and around was very exciting.But then,I smashed my foot in the cement anchoring the center post,and the fun ended.There was a lot of blood,but in the end I was not badly hurt.
Back at home we ate hot dogs that we'd got at the big store,and then we spent some time out in the back yard.There were no cars rushing past at all,and there was green,soft grass all over the place,in place of the mud and wood and trees that I'd been used to.But when I heard my mother say something about a garden,I wondered if there would be pigs digging there.And then we slept in our new house.
Author's Note: a few days ago I received a message on Facebook from Braunlyn Beaulieu,who was a neighbor when I lived in Moncton,saying "Moncton must have seemed like the big city. Braunlyn,to this point is among my most faithful readers,and I wish to thank her for taking the time.Indeed Moncton did seem very big,but that's kind of getting ahead of the story.And hey,Braunlyn,I would invite you to take the time to leave comments here on this blog,should you so choose.I'm always open to the commentary,I've always wanted this to be interactive.
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